


No, Thank You, Tom

by antivalentine



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Character Death, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 07:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antivalentine/pseuds/antivalentine
Summary: Three times Nan said no, and once when she said yes.Epigraphs from Christina Rossetti's 'No, Thank You, John'.





	1. Chapter 1

> _I have no heart? - Perhaps I have not;_   
>  _But then you’re mad to take offence_   
>  _That I don’t give you what I have not got:_   
>  _Use your own common sense._
> 
>  

The Bhaers never confessed to their pupils that there were money troubles that winter, but both Tommy and Nan were sharp enough to realise that something was wrong; Mrs Bhaer always looked tired and frazzled, the Professor suddenly seemed an old man, and there were two or three new boys who, to Tommy's mind, were not at all the usual sort, being rich and dull and having nothing at all wrong with them. Tommy rather lorded it over the remaining students nowadays, considering himself a sort of unofficial head boy in view of his seniority, but these fellows were not even fun to boss around. It was only a few months since poor little Dick had succumbed to pneumonia, and though he had been sick for a long time the blow was still a sad one, and hit the younger boys especially hard.

At fifteen, Nan was tall for her age, and rather thin, as if her body had been stretched out like elastic and not yet adjusted to its new dimensions. Her skirts were perpetually too short, which mortified her, since although being ladylike was still a matter of some indifference to her she did wish to be considered a grown-up. She studied hard, the promise of a place at medical school now well within her sights, and treated her old playmate with an air of condescension that nettled him extremely. 

It had once been something of an annual tradition for the younger boys at Plumfield to send valentines to the girls; Demi composing verses for the edification of his little cousin Bess, and for his sister on Nat's behalf, since the latter would never feel at home with words as he did with music, while Tommy and Nan tried to outdo each other with the most absurd creation they could find. One year, Tommy chalked a (very) short missive to Mrs Giddy-Gaddy upon the shell of one unfortunate turtle, only to be confronted with an actual lamb's heart, extracted from the kitchen and packed in ice by that enterprising young lady, so that Mrs Bhaer might not scold her for letting it spoil. Naturally, Mrs Bhaer scolded anyway; though not without laughing, which rather undermined the effect. 

But now the Deacon had put away such childish things, and Nat no longer dared ask for anyone's help in wooing Daisy. Tommy found his friend's newfound reticence most interesting, though Nat coloured and stammered so when the subject was raised that Tommy did not like to speak of valentines again.

Nothing felt quite right; Mrs Bhaer was cross, Demi morose, Nat distracted, sunny little Bess far, far away, wintering in the south of France, and Nan buried in her books, infuriatingly intent upon growing up.

'Go away, Tom, I'm busy,' said Nan, without troubling to look up.

'Don't you know what they say about all work and no play? You're getting dull as ditchwater,' Tommy complained, swishing at the curtains with his stick.

'If you have more cliches to share, go tell them to Daisy; she is marking laundry, and will be glad of the chatter. Don't you have anything else to do?'

'Did my prep hours ago, asked Mrs Bhaer if she had any jobs for me, and she said I'm big enough to keep myself amused without her setting me tasks.'

'Well then, amuse yourself, and don't plague me.'

Tommy spun around on the piano stool for a few revolutions, plinked the keys aimlessly, got up and sighed theatrically before resuming his assault upon the drapes.

Nan rolled her eyes. 'Honestly, is this the best use of your time you can think of?'

Tommy attempted, for approximately ten seconds, to think of better uses for his time and decided that, all things considered, he would rather waste it with Nan than with anyone else. This was a new thought to him, and it was necessary to sit back down on the piano stool and swivel some more in order to digest it.

Like any proper boy, Tommy had always considered 'love' to be soppy girls' stuff, unworthy of a fellow's attention; it was always possible that some boys might grow up to be soft and sappy, but not him, no sir! But since everyone had to marry someone when they grew up, he had resolved to marry Nan, since she was the most fun out of the girls he knew, and would not follow him around or annoy him too much.

This doctrine had held good when they were children, but now, at the elevated age of sixteen, Tommy rather felt that it would not, after all, be tiresome to have Nan with him all the time, with her quick tongue and her bright eyes, her glossy hair, her little white teeth nibbling meditatively on a pencil...

It was as if he was seeing her for the first time, in the pale February light, in the smell of wood polish, in the fragile weight of the twig in his hand, and everything was clear and confused all at the same time, this feeling in the pit of his stomach that was a little like fear and a little bit like excitement but not either of those things, nor anything else he could recognise.

Except hunger, perhaps. It was a little like hunger.

'Why are you bothering with all that pegging anyway?' Tommy demanded abruptly, springing up from the stool and glancing out of the window at the rain, still falling.

Nan sighed. 'I shan't get into medical school without studying hard, you know that.'

'But why waste time with medical school?'

Nan slammed her book shut and fixed him with a gimlet stare. 'I can't believe you just said that. _You_ , of all people.'

'I know it's always been your dream to be a doctor,' Tommy floundered, 'I just think... Well, you'll only have to give it up sooner or later when you get married anyway, so what's the point?'

Nan looked at him as if he were an idiot. 'I'm not getting married.'

Tom looked at her as if she were speaking Chinese. 'How can you say that?'

'What do you mean, how can I say that? It's very simple. I've chosen to have a career instead. Of course I wouldn't train to be a doctor then throw it all away. I can just imagine how happy that would make all those people who say women can't be this and can't be that, and all we *can* do is be wives and mothers.'

'But what if you fall in love?' Tommy persisted.

'I don't think I shall,' said Nan. 'At least, I'm determined that I shan't, and I don't think I have the temperament for it anyhow. I don't care for dresses and dances and flowers and beaux, or any of the other things young ladies are meant to fill their heads with. I always liked mysteries and adventures better than romances and fairy tales, and I like science best of all, because it's true, and interesting, and useful.'

It was a little like despair, this feeling in the pit of his stomach. But it was also a little like exultation, because... because she was magnificent, and so entirely not like other girls.

Lying on his bed in the throes of this first delicious woe, he found the remains of the twig in his pocket, shredded and broken during this exchange as irrevocably, he thought self-dramatisingly, as his heart.

Nan found the valentine hidden in the pages of her Euclid a couple of days later -- bits of twig, painted white and pasted on to a sheet of red card, the letters in the center of the heart printed with painstaking neatness: MARRY ME. A shadow passed over the intent young face as she flipped it over and saw on the reverse:

'True as science. T. Bangs'

She looked up, saw him lounging against the doorway -- hands in pockets, face tragical -- and laughed.

'It's not a joke!' he hollered as he ran away, and she pressed her hands to her burning cheeks wishing that it was, that her laughter could have made it one, or that he could have seized the opportunity to pass it off as such. Anything other than this.

She would go to him later, and speak to him as she imagined Mrs Bhaer might. She would apologise. She would be calm, and comforting; but not too calm or comforting, because she knew Tommy's capacity for optimism, and he was quite capable of imagining her in love with him based on a single kind word or glance. Hopefully he would get over this silliness soon, and they could go back to being friends, without reserve or awkwardness. She did not think either of them would be very good at reserve and awkwardness, and she did not want to try it.


	2. Chapter 2

> _Why will you tease me day by day,_   
>  _And wax a weariness to think upon_   
>  _With always 'do' and 'pray'?_

 

'Do you remember the valentine I sent you, when I was sixteen?'

Nan peered at him under her sunhat. The other students ribbed her about this hat, its proportions being fairly generous -- in fact, Mrs Bhaer had laughed out loud when she first saw Nan wearing it, and said she had one just like it when she was a girl -- but Nan cared more for practicality than fashion, and glare from the sun was injurious to the eyes. Her silence suggested that she either didn't remember, or didn't want to remember, but Tommy pressed on regardless.

'The day I made it, I was badgering you while you were trying to study, and you said you didn't ever want to get married, because you wanted to be a doctor.'

Nan raised her eyes to heaven, meeting instead the woven interior of her hat. 'It's remarkable that you have any recollection of that conversation, Tom, considering how many times I've had to repeat myself since.'

'Ah, but!' Tommy shifted his position, since he couldn't see her face very well and crouching on the grass had made his leg go numb. 'I wouldn't dream of stopping you being a doctor, that's the thing. We could set up a splendid practice together, me dealing with all the old stick-in-the-muds who don't believe in lady doctors, while you get on with patching up everybody else and inventing new treatments and such. Who else would let you carry on practising? But I wouldn't just let you, Nan, I'd encourage you, because I know you'd be so good at it, and you're quite right, it'd be a crime to deprive the world of your medical expertise.'

'I don't think all the medical expertise in the world could save your prospective practice,' said Nan. 'I'm not sure I could even trust you to write scripts, your handwriting has become so appalling.'

'Illegible handwriting is a sign of intelligence, everyone says so.'

'It'll also be a sign of imminent poisoning, if you don't watch out for it.'

'Very well then, I'll work on my lettering. Apart from that, what do you think of my plan?'

Nan swatted at a mosquito which was trying to settle on her neck. 'I think you're the last person in the world I would want as a colleague. As a friend, yes, always. But working alongside you? Heavens, no. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. You should have a vocation to do this kind of work, or at the very least an aptitude for it. You have neither, and that worries me.'

'I have all the vocation I need, right here' and Tommy twiddled a daisy idly under his chin, which was rather rough at present as he was endeavouring to grow a beard.

'Don't be sentimental, you know I don't like it,' Nan scolded, slapping him down as effectively as the fly whose entrails she was presently employed in wiping away with her handkerchief.

'I can't help my feelings, and I keep them down as much as I can for your sake, but sometimes they overpower me and I can't keep quiet any more.' Tommy rolled over on to his back with a melodramatic little sigh. 'I do study hard, and I work the best I can, but you're always so scornful, even though everything I do is with you in mind.'

'Rot,' said Nan, shortly. 'If you truly cared for me, you would respect my wishes, and let us both pursue the paths to which we're best suited. You would make a devoted husband, I'm sure, but I would be as unsuited to being a wife as you are to being a doctor. I wish you'd see that, and let this fancy go.'

'It's not a fancy.' He closed his eyes against the sun and watched the inside of his eyelids blaze orange. His actions would speak louder than his words, he decided. He would live up to the promise made four years ago to be as true as science. He would serve this long, dreary apprenticeship for her sake, and eventually she would _have_ to admit that his love for her was no mere fad.

And he would be sure to be gracious about it when she realised that she was wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

> _Why will you haunt me with a face as wan_   
>  _As shows an hour-old ghost?_

 

'Nan!' he called suddenly. She had an unexpected pang at the sound of the childhood name; she had been Dr. Harding for so many years now that the only time she heard it was back at Plumfield, for she had always been 'Annie' to her father. And the note of pain in Tom's voice was impossible to ignore.

'Won't you stay? Couldn't you? The boys have always been fond of you, and she wouldn't... She'd have wanted it, she didn't want to leave us alone. I don't know what to do, Nan, and you... you always have.'

She hugged him, then, so fiercely did her heart go out to him, but as he put his arms around her she gently extricated herself and, holding him at arm's length so she could look up into his face, said in her best, level, bedside tone:

'I promise you, Tom, you will get through this, however hard it seems right now. It is unbearable, but somehow, you'll bear it. Don't ask me how. Just trust me.'

'You don't understand,' Tom said wildly. 'You can't understand. You've never been married. You don't know what it's like, to go through your whole life with someone always by your side, and then they're gone... just like that. It's like losing part of yourself.'

'I've seen it happen. Many, many times.' She didn't want to cry, but she was crying, and the maddening, guilt-inducing thing was that she knew it was as much due to anger as to grief. She had always resented the implication that she was somehow less of a woman, less of a person, because she had never married or had children; that she had only chosen  _ agape _ over  _ eros _ because she was too cold, or too clever, to follow the path expected of her. It was many years now since anyone had reproached her with her spinsterhood; past thirty-five or so, such things ceased to matter or seem strange. But when she saw Tom, even now, it took her back to being that stubborn little girl, fighting to keep her life her own.

'Please, Nan. I need you. Can't you just stay a few weeks? Until we're settled?'

It was the madness of grief talking, she knew. Dora's passing had blasted a hole through his comfortable life and he could think of no other way to repair it. He was clutching at straws, snatching at his long-past childhood dream, as if Doctor Giddy-Gaddy could make it all better with a handful of herbs and a kiss.

'You know I can't. I have to work.'

'Really? Your patients are still more important to you than me? Or the boys?'

'That's not fair.' It wasn't as if she _wanted_ to leave them, she thought. It was heartbreaking to think of those happy, carefree boys having to adjust to life without the mother who had adored them so. True, the youngest was almost fourteen, but that didn't make things any easier. If anything, they would be more aware of what they had lost; and aware, too, that it was irreplaceable.

She picked up her case with a sigh. 'You have so many other people to help you. My patients only have one doctor. So it's not that they're more important to me, just that I'm more important to them.'

'You don't know that. You always…'

'I've always known what has to be done, Tom. You just said so yourself.' She laid her hand upon his cheek. 'I can't make this better for you. I can't bring Dora back. I'm sorry, but I have to go.'

She was halfway to the station before she could succeed in wrenching her thoughts back to her patients. The young married woman who had lost two babies already and was thirty-four weeks gone with a third. The septuagenarian who had been at death's door for almost six months now, defying all her predictions. The delicate boy of fifteen with a cough that would not go away...

She might not be able to save them either. But she would do what she could.


	4. Chapter 4

> _Let us strike hands as hearty friends;_   
>  _No more, no less; and friendship’s good_

 

'It's so pleasant up here, I think I should like to stay here always' mused Nan, leaning back against the slender trunk of the old willow and glancing up at the canopy of leaves, admiring the way it filtered the harsh sun down to a gentle dappled light, playing on the floor like the water beneath them.

'I mean to,' said Tommy, who was engaged in counting his eggs and checking them over for cracks. 'When I'm grown up, I'll be able to do whatever I like and live wherever I choose, so I'll hide up here, and throw things down, and nobody will have any idea where they come from.'

'What sorts of things?'

'Oh, whistles, and spinning tops, and yo-yos, anything that would be helpful for boys who couldn't afford to buy them, you know. And if anyone does anything mean or spiteful, I'll see it from here, and the next time they walk by they'll get a rotten egg dropped on their head.'

Nan giggled. 'But you'll have to come down for dinner, and then they'll guess it was you.'

'No, I'll get Daisy to make me a cake in her kitchen, and then she can bring it up to me.'

'Or,' said the ever-practical Nan, 'you could just lower a basket, on a rope, and save her the climb.'

'That's true. I could put my eggs in there, or anything that would break if I threw it down, and swap them for food.'

'We could catch fish in the brook, and cook them over a fire. I'm sure I could gut a fish, if Asia showed me how.' She peered down, scanning the rushing stream for signs of life. 'Would you mind if I lived here too?'

''Course not,' said Tommy. 'I might get lonely if I was by myself all the time. And if any of my animals got sick you could nurse them back to health.'

'Or if you got sick. Which you might, if all you lived upon was Daisy's cakes.'

'I won't take castor oil, however bad I feel.'

'I'd never make you,' Nan reassured him, twisting his horse-hair ring around her finger.

'Well, then, we have a deal.' Tommy proffered his somewhat grubby hand, and she shook it. And it may as well be recorded here, since no other note exists of it, that of all the tinctures Nan prescribed for him in later years as cures for love or indigestion, castor oil was never among them.


End file.
